MA in Landscape Architecture 

at Birmingham City University, Birmingham

• Use a front cover, 1st page, with name and course applied for
• You can use a website, video, or a PDF format. For PDF, please ensure your portfolio is between A3-A2 page size, try to keep below a 20mb file. For video, please either host your work on a platform such as Youtube, or upload the original file (up to 50mbs).
• Tailor your portfolio towards your audience (the reviewer) by starting with your best piece of work.
• Provide brief notes (annotations), which explain your work. Try to summarise why, where, and how you did it: we are interested in the details!
• Show us a diverse range of work, perhaps including: technical drawings, observational sketches, drawings, paintings, three-dimensional work, CAD work, graphic designs, or photos of construction or horticultural work
• We suggest between 10-20 pages of work
• If you don’t have much work of your own, research landscape architecture projects and explain why you like them, or how they’ve inspired you.
• If you're coming from a traditional route such as A Level or BTEC training try to include evidence of drawing, collage, photography and artist process pictures of landscape.
• If you come from a more specific landscape architecture background it would be useful to include: technical drawings (use of CAD), construction knowledge and planting knowledge/ experience e.g. projects built.
• To represent large 3D pieces, take a few of photographs from a variety of angles, play with perspective, perhaps so that they look like the view a person would have when looking at the structure or from a particular view you may see.
• It is important to show final pieces, but it is perhaps even more important to show the development of them. We want to see the thinking behind your work and how your ideas develop. This can be demonstrated through sketchbooks and journals with notes.

Skills we would like to see

1. Hand drawing.
2. Creative thinking.
3. Evidence that you’re enthusiastic about the subject.